Origin and history of jacks

machine sense (1932), from now-obsolete poker sense (1881) in reference to antes that begin when no player has a pair of jacks...The pot must then be opened by a player holding a hand of the value of a pair of knaves (jacks) or better....

as a term in cribbage: Jamboree signifies the combination of the five highest cards, as, for example, the two Bowers [jacks...

('He calls the Knaves Jacks!', remarks Estella contemptuously in Dickens's Great Expectations.)...

He is listed among other famous Jacks in "Iack a Lent" (1620) and is sometimes defined as an impertinent little man, but...

1560s (attested in Anglo-Latin from late 13c.), from Late Latin itinerantem (nominative itinerans), present participle of itinerare "to travel," from Latin iter (genitive itineris) "a journey," from ire "go" (from PIE root *ei- "to go"). Originally in reference to circuit courts.

late 14c., druggen, "work hard, especially at servile, monotonous, or uninteresting work," (and compare druggunge, mid-13c.), probably from a variant of Old English dreogan "to work, suffer, endure," from Proto-Germanic *dreugana (source also of Old Saxon driogan, Old Norse drygj

"wet, soft, spongy ground with soil chiefly composed of decaying vegetable matter," c. 1500, from Gaelic and Irish bogach "bog," from adjective bog "soft, moist," from Proto-Celtic *buggo- "flexible" (from PIE root *bheug- "to bend"). A bog is characterized by vegetation, decaye

late 14c., "large, rounded vase used to preserve the ashes of the dead," from Latin urna "a jar, vessel of baked clay, water-jar; vessel for the ashes of the dead" (also used as a ballot box and for drawing lots), probably from earlier *urc-na, akin to urceus "pitcher, jug," and

Old English, "move swiftly by using the legs, go on legs more rapidly than walking," also "make haste, hurry; be active, pursue or follow a course," and, of inanimate things, "to move over a course." The modern verb is a merger of two related Old English words, in both of which t

[act of striking] c. 1300, "blow delivered with a weapon, paw, or hand," probably from an unrecorded Old English *strac, from Proto-Germanic *straik- (source also of Middle Low German strek, German streich, Gothic striks "stroke"); see stroke (v.). The meaning "mark of a pen" is